


Personal Notes (14) Gap Year

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [14]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bad Sex, Carlos head canon backstory, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 22:16:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1704527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil's tale of traveling in Europe reminds Carlos of his own gap year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (14) Gap Year

The postgrads have been complaining that their bowling team has been unable to train because Teddy Williams and his militia have initiated a round the clock perimeter guard of the pin retrieval area, extending his siege to the whole bowling area. I'm glad the science team is getting into local events but I'm not sure their choice of team name is appropriate for a town where almost all of the inhabitants believe neither in mountains nor snow. Still, "The Piste Artistes" have not actually discussed skiing in front of any locals and are doing quite well in the bowling league. I've stepped in a couple of times when they are a member short due to the permanent hazard of lab injuries.

Gio said he saw the apache tracker talking to a man in a tan jacket. I have not seen that offensive jerk around for a while, I hope Cecil hasn't seen him. I wonder who the man in the tan jacket is? I have a vague memory of something that I can't quite pin down.

Cecil described some kind of gap-year experience on his show. I'm not sure his memories are accurate. Although my command of geography is physical rather than political my course on geology and geophysics never mentioned any of the countries he visited. His whole experience sounded like an entirely different kind of "trip". It made me laugh in places and I wondered if he had made the whole thing up just to slip in a double entendre. Perhaps my brain is suffering from the postgrads' chatter today. They decided to speak entirely in the language of innuendo with a prize for the best subversion of a scientific term. I had to leave the room after Kirandeep's sultry radioactive penetration followed by Gio's demonstration of electrostatics by vigorously polishing his rod. 

My own gap year was probably the most educational experience of my life, but not in the way I expected. I planned a year off between college and beginning my doctoral studies with the intention of going to Geneva and spending some time at CERN (as a tourist, it was impossible to get work experience there at short notice) then arranging via a college contact to share a work experience placement at a nuclear fusion research facility in France. I didn't get there.

I do not have an impulsive, spontaneous nature. I had been dumped in the past over my dislike of public displays of affection, lack of sufficiently romantic gestures, unwillingness to try new things and my poor reaction to surprises. With boyfriends, I preferred to agree boundaries in advance. So it was totally out of character when I met someone on the plane to Geneva and agreed to let him show me around Europe. I had a window seat, he was in the seat next to me. We ignored each other through take off then got chatting after a while to ease the boredom. Several little bottles of wine encouraged me to talk. He was from Nice, he said, and I should visit him there. I told him my plans and he said, "But a man as beautiful as you shouldn't hide underground." 

It was the first time anyone ever called me that. We looked at each other. My face must have shown my surprise and he laughed, apologised in case he had embarrassed me. On the ground I would have run, but we still had six hours of captivity before landing and there was nowhere I could go. He repeated it. "But you are beautiful, and not used to being told so, I gather?" I said no, it's not the sort of thing people said about me. Clever, yes. Geeky, yes. Aloof, yes. Rude, often. Beautiful, no. He smiled and rested his hand on top of mine where I had gripped the armrest between us. He asked me if this was okay, said he could tell I was a little uncomfortable. Stone cold sober I might have snatched my hand away and asked to move seats, but instead I thought, why not he seems nice enough, and turned my hand around to clasp his. After a while, we dozed off resting against each other, holding hands. 

When I woke up he had saved coffee and a pastry for me from the in-flight breakfast. We decided to share a taxi into Geneva, find my hostel and his hotel, check in then meet later at one of the cafes by the lake. He was already there when I arrived and I sat opposite him. He said he was happy that I was there, he had wondered if I would change my mind. I said it was just coffee. He laughed and said, "It's never just coffee." I studied the rainbow pattern in the water jet out on the lake. 

We made plans. I would visit CERN but then travel with Kamul from Nice. He could practise his English and teach me a little French. Our itinerary included Geneva, Nice, Barcelona, Granada... I think there were a few more cities we intended to visit but didn't. I didn't much like Nice but I never told Kamul that. I didn't like his driving or his parking skills either, both made me feel unsafe. His little European car was dented front and back from slamming repeatedly forwards and backwards into parked cars to make an inadequate space big enough. He was proud of his ability to find a "space" in any cramped narrow street. He invited me to stay at his apartment, in the spare room of course. He took me to what he called an "exotic" restaurant. It served curry and was so exotic that the entire menu was in English. I was my usual reserved self but he talked enough for both of us. 

Barcelona next, by train thankfully. And there was a revelation of mathematics and geometry and art and architecture... We queued for hours to see the Sagrada Familia with its ruled sine wave roof (although we only saw that feature in Gaudi's scale model, I wish I could go back and see it built). We went to Parc Guell where I was blown away by the beauty of Gaudi's work. I stood and gaped at the immersion of nature in art, and he kissed me. Right out in the open. And nobody cared. 

We went to the beach at Barcelonetta and watched as leathery guys hit on girls less than half their age, alternately giggling and shuddering at their obscene behaviour. We walked slowly around the old town, listening to the buskers. We walked up Las Ramblas, risking the pickpockets and speculating about why none of the fortune tellers were rich. 

One evening, the third or fourth, after our usual goodnight kiss, he just followed me into my room and I let him. He asked if it was okay, I said yes, probably. I wasn't sure I wanted him, but I wasn't sure I didn't either. We lay on the single bed in the little room, kissing and touching. I rubbed his erection with my hand until he begged me "stop but don't stop", unfastened his button and zip, then mine, pulled our clothes out of the way. We knelt facing each other, hands up and down each other's cocks, fingers stroking sensitive skin below. It didn't take long. Afterwards, he went back to his room and we slept alone.

Next day, early, we took an internal flight to Granada. The airport was not much more than a shack in the dust. We checked in to two little rooms in another cheap hotel then went to see the Alhambra. Again I was mesmerised by the melding of mathematics and art. I had no idea that two such different subjects could be so beautiful together. Back home, architecture means square, plain buildings with little to them beyond what function requires. That evening, after a late street-food dinner, I followed Kamul into his little room. We undressed each other quickly, haste ripping a button off my shirt. I took charge. I pushed him onto the bed, lay on top of him, kissed him deeply, then relaxed as I felt him harden below me. "You want this?" I said. He nodded. I held his wrists above his head, my forearms trapping his arms, and we began to grind against each other, slowly then faster, harder, until I came. I took both of his wrists with one hand and reached the other down between us and stroked until I felt him shudder and gasp. 

I went back to my room. Next day we planned to visit Madrid. Technically we did visit Madrid. Our little plane from Granada landed and on the way out of the airport Kamul met some friends who were about to check in for their flight. Coffee and introductions in French and English. As soon as Kamul excused himself and left to find a restroom, his friends started talking about us in Spanish. I didn't let on that they were conversing secretly in my native tongue. They discussed what Kamul was planning on telling his "real" boyfriend when he got back from a work trip to Mexico. They speculated on which box he would tick when he was done with me, compared me with other men he had picked up and dropped, wondered which chat up line had worked on me. There was more but they switched back to innocuous French indicating that Kamul was on his way back. 

I was quietly fuming. As Kamul sat down, I looked at him, all of them, and said in Spanish something that translates roughly as, "Go shove a stick up your ass," and left them squabbling at each other. I bought a ticket for the next flight to Geneva so that I could use the open return part of my transatlantic ticket. 

So my gap year ended after about three weeks. I said it was educational and it was: I learned that art can be understood, impulsive behaviour doesn't suit me and people can be total jerks. I would like to return to Spain one day, it's like abroad and exotic and old but without the language barrier although the slang is a little different and they did laugh at my accent.

Back in the present, Cecil gave a news report that he said was from next week and that the wire machines are linked to time machines now. I checked and my lab notes have not been touched. I wondered how my research could have been leaked then remembered with a hot flash of anger that another brain somewhere held the same information as mine. He needs to be stopped before there is another accident.

**Author's Note:**

> K, if you recognise any part of yourself here, I'd just like to add that you're a chateau-bottled shit.


End file.
